who cared whether I ate or not. [35] I stayed for a few days in a village, slept
in a barn, ate roasted potatoes with water.
One evening the peasant woman told the Jews to leave the village because
the yevonim were coming. The Jews wouldn’t listen to her, so she threw us all
out of the house, and we had to move on. I went with some other families and
settled in another village, but we soon heard rumours of many Jews being tortured
in a nearby village, and they were confirmed by people who had been
there. A band of yevonim had arrived, rounded up all the men for hard labour,
beating them with whips. Then they made them run, whipping them again.
After that, they ordered them all to lie face down on the ground and bury
their faces well into the sand, and if anyone lifted his head to breathe, they
trod on it and pushed his face back into the sand. The news [36] frightened
us so much that we left the village immediately.
So I took to the road again and dragged myself along with the other Jews.
I kept going until I reached a small town called D[zierżenin?],¹⁷⁶⁹ a popular
letnisko.¹⁷⁷⁰ When I entered the town, I saw a commotion and lots of people on
the street. I asked what was going on and was told that the people were refugees
who had been expelled from their towns and had found a resting place
here after their tribulations. I stayed in the town for a few days, but then the
yevonim gathered all the Jews together in the marketplace and one of them
addressed the crowd: “Be informed that new arrivals must leave town immediately
and local residents have two hours to gather their belongings and leave,
after which they can take nothing with them.” Weeping and wailing broke
out and people began to leave. Some people hired carts, some carried their
things on their [37] backs, and some took nothing at all.
The people I had stayed with were close acquaintances. I knew them
from our town since they often came as guests there. They used to visit their
grandmother and stay with her for long periods of time. One boy was raised
by this grandmother from an early age and my brother and I became friends
with him, so we were well used to each other. He had enjoyed our hospitality
in almost every regard but, despite all that, finding myself in a situation as
difficult as the present one, I swallowed my pride and asked whether I might
stay with them for a few days to get my strength back. However, he answered
1769 Dzierżenin (Pułtusk County).
1770 (Polish) summer resort.
